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Balanchine revered Petipa, and while he didn't see it as his task to faithfully preserve Petipa, he didn't have to because others did. It doesn't matter that because Balanchine changed his ballets over time and changed them for different dancers there is no one standard "authentic" version. All the versions he taught or coached were authentic. Tallchief and Hayden could have given insight that Martins doesn't have because they were there when he wasn't. Verdy still could. Likewise D'Amboise and Villella.

Yes, as someone who didn't grow up with opera and has never quite "gotten" them, that's very interesting to read. I wonder how widespread the feeling is among knowledgeable and longtime opera lovers. The Baroque is not at all my favorite era, and Giulio Cesare is about the fourth or fifth HD transmission I passed up this year for one reason or another, in this case because I didn't think I could handle 5 hours of Handel. But as it turned out this afternoon, I never turned off the radio.

That’s fascinating, sandik. Do I understand you correctly that Nakamura’s and Korbes’ characters both make the same choices, but that Nakamura chooses to show Odile thinking through those choices, while as Korbes portrays her she seems to make them instinctively? Very interesting. Thank you for writing such a detailed review.

A typo, I think? These premiered at the opening night of the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. Nancy Goldner's book The Stravinsky Festival does list them as premiering on June 18, the first night. Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fee is listed on the third evening, June 21.

Yes, or if the book came out not only in print but as an I-Pad app with embedded video, like David Vaughan's Merce Cunningham: 65 Years, his excellent and award-winning update of his coffee table book, Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years.

It's not dense, but it is exhaustive. Not having seen and therefore having a clear mental picture of most of the company's dancers,I sometimes tired of all the rehearsal descriptions, even though I read the book little by little before bedtime. Still, that's my problem. All that history is there for anyone who wants it. I'm sorry Manes had to cut it down.

Click the YouTube logo by the lower-right corner of the frame, and you'll get the full story. Aha! - 1959. Thanks.

Now that's pretty cool! Is there a date on it?

She was wonderful in Allegro Brilliante this afternoon, very much in command, and with that million-watt smile of hers. I'd blink and open my eyes and she'd be in an entirely new position. She told the Washington Post that by the end of the ballet, "it feels like you could not possibly do one more step," but she looked liked she could have done the whole thing all over again. I was pretty disappointed in Kowroski's Swan however, and I'm a big fan of hers. Her face showed no emotion until late in the ballet, and I guess the kind thing to say about her dancing is that it was lyrical. To me it looked little more than marked sometimes, and she just didn't etch those iconic images sharply. Keener eyes may have seen better things. I will say that she moved me by the ballet's end. As for Fairchild's T&V, she clearly had her heart in it, but she just doesn't have the grandeur when it's called for. The orchestra was glorious all afternoon.

Thank you. Bummer.

Unless casting was updated in the program last night, they're scheduled to dance it Sunday afternoon as well. Thanks for the report, though. Who replaced Taylor?

That's the spirit! Having learned to love not just opera, but jazz and classical music the same way (by study and perseverance), I've never understood the complaint that the high arts are elitist. If they're elitist, well, what do the "elite" know that I don't? Perhaps for some people it takes humility to ask that question. For me, it's just come naturally. I've never doubted the understanding would be worth the effort.

I wonder too. For one reason or another I'm only seeing one HD this season, but I've seen as many as a half a dozen, and I plan to catch a few when they're rebroadcast this summer.But the regional company here, which introduced me to live opera 20 years ago, and which now performs in the same theater that shows the broadcasts, last year charged almost twice what HD tickets cost. Between seeing their Boheme and taking the opportunity to see . . . well, anything from the Met's HD season, none of which my local company will probably ever do, despite the fact that this is a moneyed, educated town . . . the choice is easy.

No, but at least he's asked about what he thinks about the music and the role. At least we're given more to think about. The de rigeur flattery and camaraderie between the singers which is also part of most interviews, while pleasant in itself because it's usually convincing, is what really destroys contemplation for me. And what bother me just as much are the preview shots before the live broadcast begins. I close my eyes. Anyhow, after listening to the Parsifal broadcast I already regretted passing on the HD transmission. Reading this thread, I look forward all the more to a possible encore showing, or if that doesn't happen, at least to Met on Demand.

Macaulay has a lot to say about the music today: http://www.nytimes.c...ation.html?_r=0 He points out wrong notes at one performance (I heard them at others, but consider that routine in so many performances), but he mainly focuses on rearrangements and omissions from the original scores. He doesn't have much to say about the quality of the musical performances otherwise (tempo, expressiveness, etc.) I think that we should judge the music as part of the overall package Balanchine designed, not by concert hall standards. The company members talk a lot about the integrity of the musical scores, first and foremost, but Balanchine himself is the one who made all those changes. Macaulay praised the conducting and the orchestra's sound in his review ("Letting Dance Carry the Music") on the 16th. I don't think he's complaining about Balanchine's cuts and rearrangements here, but just noting that they provide food for thought. Every one of his reviews gives me food for thought.

According to Antole Chujoy in The New York City Ballet, when NYCB visited London in 1950 Kirstein responded to an unsigned review in the Times by writing in part that A quick search finds a number of head portraits in oil on canvas and in brush and gray wash on paper, and also a disturbing oil Phenomena in which Magallanes is identified as the nude, but not the nude Kavanaugh seems to be referring to.

And she was in Scherzo a la Russe in September.

For me as well. I have a copy on the wall of my study. It was a gift (not from Kolnik).

I agree. It didn't have much of a chance in front of that backdrop though, did it? In regards to Other Dances, Helene’s observation that Peck has none of Makarova’s je ne sais quoi reminded me that I first saw that ballet as danced Patricia McBride (with Baryshnikov), a dancer Peck is sometimes compared to. I’m sorry I never saw Makarova dance it, but I think McBride’s openness suits it as well. Whether that made Peck the best choice for a Makarova tribute is another question, but I’m glad to have this clip. As for Kent and Hallberg, I thought the disparity in their age was obvious in the close-ups, but only in the close-ups, so that’s a real compliment.

I would have preferred one longer story ballet excerpt to three very short ones. Obviously the three excerpts allowed more dancers to appear, but it felt like a case of dumbing down, of expecting and catering to short attention spans.

They were wonderfully in character. Still, while I guess a proper tribute to Makarova had to be heavy on story ballets, I generally hate to see excerpts, especially the most emotional bits, and especially when they’re danced in front of a generic backdrop. But Tiler Peck - wow! I turned the set off after the introduction for Led Zeppelin, but I enjoyed the tribute to Buddy Guy, whom I used to see in Chicago, mostly at his own Checkerboard Lounge on the south side, during those lean, “20 years of small clubs.” It was fun to recognize the Checkerboard and Teresa’s, both long gone, and also musicians like Buddy’s longtime partner Junior Wells and the saxophonist A.C. Reed. I remember Reed freaking me out one night at Wise Fools Pub, chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes on the bandstand, dragging on them down practically till they burned his lips. And the man managed to live till his late 70’s.

That’s a good point. Then again, I’m not sure why at age 77 she feels the needs to quote the First Amendment - or rather the First Amendment as originally proposed - in defense of having written the book. Anyhow, I look forward to what you and dirac think when you've finished it.

Thanks, ViolinConcerto. I downloaded the Kindle sample, much of which is about the making of The Cage, and Robbins' brutal, "army camp behavior" which "skirted the borders of torture," and what a shock the violent sexual nature of the ballet was to a 14-year old girl in 1950. Robbins' ugly temper is well known, and it's easy to understand why Bocher was traumatized. But it's a shame she and her co-author write in a melodramatic and emotionally overblown manner, in clichéd and purple prose full of grammatical errors and words they don't understand the meaning of. I won't be buying the book.

How much do you value being able to read faces and see sumptuous sets versus seeing choreographic patterns? I have a only a dim memory of Carousel, but personality means a lot in Vienna Waltzes, which is the greater work - the great or near great work on the program. On the other hand, I'd choose upstairs over orchestra back or sides for Glass Pieces. You don't want to sit very close for that.

That story always makes me laugh. As does Prince "whooping cough," which we have a thread about.